An incredibly complex simulation, it was generally regarded as difficult. Armed with none of the tongue-in-cheek humor that Maxis' prior games were known for, the only real link to the franchise was the SimCity 2000-inspired user interface. Noel Fritzinger, who with Lyman Orton first conceptualized CommunityViz, says that his inspiration came from seeing SimHealth and wondering if the same concepts could be applied to real-world land-use planning.

Entertainment Weekly gave the game a C- writing "For a vivid demonstration of just how complex — and boring — the health care crisis is, try spending a few hours with SimHealth, which lets you do what Hillary Clinton couldn't: design a successful national health care system."[1]